The Dragon Heir (Heir Chronicles, #3)

by Cinda Williams Chima

For centuries, wizards have avoided making war on each other for fear of waking the legendary dragon that sleeps at Raven's Ghyll. But it is a new age. The patriarch Nicodemus Snowbeard is rapidly failing. The Wizard Houses of the Red and White Rose have united against Claude D'Orsay, Master of Games and keeper of the Dragonhold, and a moment when he and and his sadistic son Devereaux seem poised to seize control of all of the magical guilds. But then everything changes ...Jason Haley has been trying to be part of the action for months: he wants to help, but no one seems prepared to let him in. Seph is monitoring the defensive walls. Jack and Ellen are training their ghost army, even his Anaweir friends are doing their bit to help. Only Jason seems to be left out - until he stumbles across a powerful talisman, called the Dragonheart, hidden away in a cave. It seems to sing to Jason, its power calling to him. Perhaps, finally, he's going to be able to help. The final battle is coming, and the magical community of Trinity is about to risk the destruction of everything they care about in order to remain free.
The outcome is balanced on a knife edge, and the slightest advantage could turn the tide. If Jason can help, if the moody and mysterious Madison Moss can be persuaded to join the Weirguilds before it's too late, and if the friends who make Trinity a place worth fighting for remain true ...

• ISBN10: 1423110706
• ISBN13: 9781423110705
• Publish Date: 1 September 2008
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Disney Publishing Worldwide
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 512
• Language: English

Reviews

[ladygrey]

I like this world and the characters a lot but this is my least favorite in the series.

Mostly it's just that there's few good moments. There's plenty of tension and conflict and things going wrong and looking bleak. But it's not tempered by moments of solace or comfort or a spare breath of peace. Even the one segment that could be considered peaceful is tainted by lies and uncertainty.

Also, I don't like characters who make ignorant choices. It's understandable and [a:Cinda Williams China] justifies it in the character so it doesn't seem like a contrived choice to create conflict. But I still didn't like it at all. I would have liked the character more if they'd made a different choice.

But the end is really good and I liked how the story unravelled itself. Probably because of the lack of good moments throughout I wanted more time in the resolution. But the climax was cool and a good moment in light of the series as a whole. I also liked that the story was surprising even though it's exactly what you expect.

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Reread: I don’t particularly like characters keeping secrets when it doesn’t really have a purpose. I mean, something is made of it in the plot but whatever and it creates conflict, but it’s not good conflict or interesting conflict. It’s just annoying. How much more interesting to talk about the hex and figure it out and have that conflict of characters interacting and wrestling with it together then wrestle with it alone snd the poof! it’s gone. And I also don’t like when characters are off on their own not interacting. This has like 5 povs and rarely are any of those characters together or talking or anything interesting. Which doesn’t make it a bad book but it’s less interesting than it could be.

[wyvernfriend]

Seph and Maddie are trying to deal with their relationship with each other and the consequences of the last book, Jason finds treasure in a cave that is going to change everything and the town of Trinity is starting to attract a lot of attention from wizards.

It's a complicated world Chima has built up and the characters are interesting, the teens are having to cace up to things that they maybe aren't ready for and their lives will never be the same again.

This one sucked me in and kept me reading past my bedtime! I enjoyed the story and found that while the ending was bittersweet and left some things up in the air it was more real for all that. It did leave space for later stories in the world, but this arc of story has been played out. I'm happy to have read them but feel a strange sense of loss now the story is over.